Final Fantasy: Guardians Incarnate
by Cassidy Peterson
Summary: This all started when I suggested that my boyfriend name a new character of his "Shiva" and then I had this idea. Shiva & Ifrit meet too many people with Guardians' names for it to be JUST a coincidence.
1. Prologue

Shiva closed her eyes, spinning her body and the ornately decorated staff, easily keeping perfectly in time with the frantic pace of the music. She listened to the singers; in particular, the voice of Ifrit, her true relationship with whom was only known to herself and the red-haired drummer.  
  
Shiva had beautiful, brownish skin, and waist-length white-blue hair. Her eyes were a deeper blue, and had reminded her parents of ice. They had named her Shiva after the legendary Guardian. Shiva had been the Guardian of Ice. Ifrit was named after the Guardian of Fire. Their parents claimed that they were Guardian Incarnates, and destined to bring about the prophecized New Era.  
  
Personally, Shiva was more concerned with Ifrit and dancing than she was with any prophecy. 


	2. Author's Note

Hey there! Welcome to Final Fantasy: Guardians Incarnate: **The Author's Note**. While I've had several ideas for my own RPGs, this is the first one I've ever done anything about.   
  
  
  
The following list explains all the Guardian characters, in a certain pattern.   
  
Name, Element, which game their Guardian form is based on, and which chapter they appear in.   
  
Non-Elemental is referred to as "Void" Element in this. I may assign elements to Void Elementals.   
  
When the chapter a character appears in is listed as a "?", that means they have not appeared in the story yet.  
  
  
  
Alexander - Holy - FF8 – 3  
  
Bahamut - Void - FFX - ?   
  
Carbuncle - Earth - FF8 - 3  
  
Ifrit - Fire - FF8 - prologue   
  
Leviathan - Water - FF9 - ?   
  
Odin - Void - FF8 - ?   
  
Quetzacotl - Thunder - FF8 - 5  
  
Ramuh – Thunder – FF9 – 5  
  
Shiva - Ice - FFX - prologue   
  
Tonberry - Dark - FF8 (Tonberry King) - ?   



	3. Chapter 1

If it hadn't been crucial that she keep her breathing just right, Shiva would have sighed.   
This was the high point of the dance.   
The music would stop, she'd plant her staff into the ground, spin around it, jangling her bells, leap into the air, land on the staff's head with only one foot, and bow.   
She allowed herself to open her eyes briefly, just long enough to see Ifrit's encouraging smile before she closed them again.   
The music stopped.   
Shiva planted the staff into the ground.   
She spun around it, the bells on her costume and the staff jangling loudly.   
The dancer leaped into the air...   
landed on the staff's head with only one foot...   
and slipped. Just as she'd known she would.   
She fell, the staffhead striking her shoulder blade hard as she went down. She screamed, landing awkwardly, moaning as she heard a crunch from her ankle. Looking down, she saw white bone pointing out at a growing puddle of red blood, and then she collapsed. 

"SHIVA!" Ifrit dropped the drum, leaping up onto the stage, grabbing the dancer as she fell. "Shiva!..." He jerked his head up, glaring at the singers and musicians. "Shiva's hurt! Somebody cast a healing spell on her!" Nobody moved. They all seemed shocked that their greatest dancer could perform such a horrendous error. "Damn you all! Help her!" 

The fires, most of which had been put out, suddenly roared into life, higher than even the mages had ever been able to make them. 

"Somebody help her!" He lay her down gently, staring about desperately. "What's wrong with you people!?" He ripped his shirt off, tearing strips from it and binding them around her ankle. 

The fires began burning lower, extinguishing themselves abruptly as Ifrit tended to Shiva's wound, sometimes popping back into life or leaping a bit higher whenever he paused to scream at the stunned onlookers. 

Nobody noticed the fires' erratic behavior. And Ifrit himself didn't notice the horns that had formed on the sides of his head, the horns that the others were all staring at, which slowly shrank and vanished as he gently bandaged the injured dancer's ankle. 


	4. Chapter 2

_ All around her, there was ice. She couldn't see anything green. The glaciers and plains surrounded her for as far as the eye could see._   
_ She wasn't cold._   
_ She was standing calmly atop her staff (when had that happened? hadn't she fallen?), balanced neatly on one foot, her other foot hooked around her ankle. She couldn't feel the familiar cloth of either her dancer's uniform, or the clothing she typically wore on stage. These clothes were different... and at the same time, she knew them so well._   
_ At length, she looked down. Just in time to see the crystalline ice rush up the staff and envelop her._   
_ She was suffocating!___

"Shiva! Wake up!"   
"Huh~!?" Shiva choked slightly, pushing herself up. Her face had been in the pillow. "Ohh. Ow, my head." She lay back down, turning her head, looking over at Ifrit. "What happened?"   
"You broke you ankle, Shiva. Nobody would cast a healing spell on you in time... the bones began to set wrong. We're bringing you to a city, to get it fixed properly."   
"My ankle... broken?" Shiva's face, already pale, turned even whiter than it had been. "Ifrit, I can't dance on a broken ankle!"   
"You'll be fine, Shiva... Tell me about your dream."   
The dancer blinked. "How did you know I had been dreaming?"   
"...I'm not sure. I just... knew. You were crying, and I've never seen you cry before. The other drummers say I cry when I have dreams, and the only times I've woken up crying, are the times I dream about a desert, and fires surrounding me."   
"My dream wasn't quite like that. I was standing on my staff in a frozen wasteland, surrounded by glaciers, and then the ice rushed up and surrounded me, trying to suffocate me. But..."   
Ifrit arched a brow. "But...?"   
"I know it's weird, but now that I'm awake, the ice that surrounded me in my dream seems... friendlier..."   
"Mm. I know what you mean. Even as the fires in my dreams burn me, I can feel them welcoming me as well."   
"Ifrit, do you think that--"   
"--our dreams are connected somehow?" The drummer nodded quietly. "Yes, Shiva, I do." 


	5. Chapter 3

            "Alexander?"

            "Mmph?"

            "Sir, there's a rovers' caravan come from the forests. One of the dancers has a broken ankle, and injuries to her back as well."

            "Grah..." Alexander yawned widely, standing. "I hate early-morning work. Where's the dancer now?"

            "Surgery rooms. Sixteen."

            "Sixteen?"

            "Room sixteen, Alexander!"

            The doctor/healer blinked groggily, grunted his acknowledgement of the information, and staggered off in the wrong direction.

            The nurse sighed. Alexander was impossible to get through to sometimes.

¤¤¤¤¤

            _She sat, looking around. What had _felt_ like a sheet disintegrated into crystals, falling off her body in a fine powder. She stood, looking around once more. She was on a miniature plateau, a flat block of ice in a barren "wint'ry desert", as her mother had called the Northern Glaciers. How she knew her location was a mystery, but there was no doubt about it; she was on one of the Northern Glaciers._

            "Shiiiivaaaa," a voice whined. She looked down. An ice imp was there, staring up at her. "Shiiiiivaaaa, protect us!" it pleaded, and suddenly grabbed her by the ankle.

¤¤¤¤¤

            Shiva sat up with a cry. "Yep, she definitely felt that," a voice muttered.

            "Alexander! Be nice! The poor girl's practically suffering!"

            "Alex...ander...?" Shiva blinked at the white-clothed young man before her. He had white-gold hair, and yellow eyes. He smiled at her.

            "Yes, that's me. Sorry about that, miss. You were very much unconscious and I didn't expect so light a touch to wake you."

            "Light touch, indeed," scolded the tan, brown-haired nurse at Alexander's side. She smiled, bowing. "My name is Carbuncle. Nice to meet you. How exactly did you injure yourself?"

            "Oh... Fell off my staff practicing a routine. Hit my shoulder on the way down, too."

            "Alexander's seen to your shoulder already. Please, lie down again. We'll see to your ankle now."

            Shiva nodded, lying back on the pillow. "Glaciers and imps," she murmured.

            "What?"

            "Nothing, Alexander..."


	6. Chapter 4

Ifrit blinked, looking up. "Shiva! You're okay!"

"Yes, I suppose I am..." The dancer glanced over her shoulder, frowning.

"Something wrong?"

Shiva ran a hand through her hair. "Ifrit, the doctor and nurse who attended to me were named after Guardians. A Guardian of Light and a Guardian of... Void, I think, or possibly Earth. Alexander and Carbuncle."

"Ah, Miss Shiva, there you are!" As if summoned, Carbuncle hurried into the room. "Alexander and I would like you to take your dinner with us tonight. Or does your caravan need to leave?"

"Oh, no, the caravan is staying for a couple days. It's been months since we visited a city and we need supplies. I'll be accompanying Shiva to dinner tonight," announced Ifrit calmly.

"Who-?"

"Carbuncle, this is Ifrit. Ifrit, this is the nurse who tended to me_;_ Carbuncle." The drummer and nurse bowed to each other as they were introduced. Carbuncle smiled pleasantly, trying not to let Ifrit realize quite how much she admired him. Ifrit's expression, however, was nowhere near as cheerful. The rover had just made an unnerving observation.

¤¤¤¤¤

"Shiva, Ifrit, Alexander, and Carbuncle?" Ifrit frowned, tapping thoughtfully at the small drum in his lap. ((Shiva and I... and now, Alexander and Carbuncle. And their colors! As if they really _were_... Nah)) He laughed, beating a merry cadence on the drum. ((That's ridiculous))

"Ifrit!" Shiva, wearing a silver-blue dress, strode up and gave the man a swift kick to the rear. "Carbuncle and Alexander are waiting for us!"

"Alright, alright. I'm coming." Setting the drum aside, Ifrit stood, running his fingers through his hair and tugging at the hem of his tunic. He closed his eyes briefly as he saw Shiva's outfit. ((Eerie. The Guardian Shiva wears a dress like that in some of the illustrated legends)) Sighing, he glanced in the mirror. ((Of course, in the legends, the Guardian Ifrit was a hairy, horned beast. I don't even have a beard))


	7. Chapter 5

            He sat upon the bird's back, stroking its head gently. Her feathers and his robes matched; almost as if the two beings were truly one.

_            "Shiva."_

_            His voice was deep, sounding almost like Ifrit's, but there was an odd underlying tone, a secondary voice of sorts. The voice of... a child?_

_            "Yes, Shiva. A child. Children, to be precise." The magnificent avian stepped forward, spreading its wings as the old man raised his staff. "But at least we _children_ have already awakened within ourselves the truth. Wake up! Guardian incarnate!"_

_            There was a flash of lightning. Then another, and another._

            They attacked her.

¤¤¤¤¤

            Shiva sat up with a cry.

            Ifrit arched a brow. "Shiva? You alright?"

            "What?" Shiva sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Where did the old man with the bird go?"

            "Old man with the..." Ifrit chuckled, petting Shiva's head. "You were dreaming, Shiva. We're in the apartment, remember? The caravan is staying here for a couple of weeks until your ankle is fully healed."

            "Oh." Shiva looked around the room. She was seated on her bed, Ifrit's bed was across the room... the curtains separating the room from the balcony swayed slightly in the summer's-night breeze. "What happened to Alexander and Carbuncle?"

            "They left hours ago. Don't you remember? They paid for our room and bought us dinner, then returned to the hospital."

            Shiva nodded slightly. "I'm sorry, Ifrit. I'm really tired."

            "Go back to bed."

¤¤¤¤¤

            _"Guardian incarnate, you shame your brethren..."_


End file.
